DVD Burner for MAC

[Peter G]

Looking for suggestions of an external DVD burner.

Also anyone know if it's important to get DVD+
or Double Layer?

I can only assume that these 'innovations' only make it harder for everyone to play your videos on thier home systems.

Thanks

peter g

[Steven Ragatz]

You will probably want to have a +/- drive so that you can deal with either format. Both are very common, and the combo drives are ubiquitous these days. Dual layer support may or may not be an advantage to you for making promotional videos. The single layer disk format is plenty of room for an hour of even loosely compressed video, so if I were personally looking into it, I wouldn't use that as a deciding factor.

Be aware that there are some other issues as well to watch out for with the notion of distributing promotional material via DVD. Many players don't like disks that are replicated as opposed to being "pressed". When you burn a DVD on your desktop, you are replicating it. Getting a disk pressed requires very large runs to make it financially feasible and is probably too costly for the small business.

Additionally, regional settings may cause conflicts if you are distributing the disks outside of your burner's region. Be careful of these settings! Even not setting any region can cause the disk to be unreadable under some conditions.

In my experience, computers seem to be more forgiving of the varied formats that dedicated DVD players, though even the computers are temperamental. Go ahead a distribute your media on DVD, but be sure to keep VHS copies available to prospective clients when they call you back wondering why your disk doesn't play on their system.

For authoring on the Mac side, consider DVD-Pro. It seems to play nicely with FinalCut and has a very intuitive, yet powerful interface. I don't know what software is available for the PC, but there are many good ones. If you wish to work on a low budget, there are several free or under $100 packages available that will let you create simple menus and graphics to present your final media.

Good luck.

Steven Ragatz

[Peter G]

So in your opinion distribution of Promo on DVD is still "not ready for prime time"?

$^&*%#&%$ !

I guess I'm back to VHS for now.

Sincerely

Peter Gross

PS although Steven is clearly very knowledgable I would be interested in other people experiences.

[Frisbee]

DVD vs VHS

I have found that more agents than not are now accepting DVD. Most agents have computers that play dvd, so if for whatever reason your dvd does not play on their regular dvd system, they can watch it on their computer.
Definately get a +/- dvd writer and most players now installed play both.
In the past week I have mailed off 10 dvd vs 1 vhs tape.
I think the change is here and DVD is taking over...and it ships more flat and a bit cheaper...but still have VHS/PAL tapes to distribute as requested.

Calls regarding non-compatible disc...none


I also agree that DVD studio pro is the way to go if you are on mac.
it is a relatively easy program to use and allows you complete design control over those cookie cutter programs pre-installed.

formatting is a partial issue if you mail out of the states...but it is just a setting change from NSTC to PAL either on your video end or on the dvd rendering end.

Again most computers will over look this and play the multiple formats.

DVD's are also easier for you to carry on you in a bag that you can easily carry a stack and hand distribute to prospective clients you meet at gigs, on the street performing scene or elsewhere.

This helped me recently when someone asked me to send them some promo and I was able to hand it to them on the spot.

With DVD there is also the possibility of having more than just video on there. You can set up a virtual presentation with a photo album, brochure and additional information about you and the show you are marketing.
also linking to your website: if it is in their computer they can cross reference directly to your site...pretty cool stuff.

much more information taking up much less space...that can't be a bad thing.

[Evan Young]

I burn DVD's on my computer all the time and have never had compatability problems with my friends players. Older players might be hard to get a long with.
you don't need double layer. I've compressed three hour hollywood movies plus bonus featurs onto a single layer and can't tell the difference.
My powerbook deals with -r better than +r. +r is newer but isn't better. having one that deals with both would be nice because there is always a good deal on blank disks of +r or -r but not both.

[Steven Ragatz]

Peter,

No, I did not mean to imply that the DVD format shouldn't be used. By all means, start distributing your promo on disk. I am just trying to provide a head's up on some of the technical issues that may come into play. DVD promotional disks are a very common and widely accepted format for agents and such these days, but the issues surrounding building a DVD are a little more involved than those recording a VHS.

Don't be frightened by the technical issues. Creating DVD promotional disks is a task that is well within the home user, or small business's capabilities.

Steven Ragatz

[Peter G]

My fellow nerds-
Well I back burnered the whole thing for a while and just returned to it about two weeks ago.

In the end I decided to replace the RW cd drive that came with my Quicksilver tower (773 mhz)
and install a MCE 16x DVD R/RW combo superdrive. So far it seems to be working great. And it only cost $118 instead of close to $200 for an external model.

I also bought an aux video card so i am now running two 17 inch monitors on my one mac.

I feel like Dynomite, Napolean Dynomite that is...

[Liz Demery]

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